UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Acclaimed poet Shara McCallum, 2021-22 Penn State Laureate and Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, will read from her works as part of the next offering in the Mary E. Rolling Reading Series, which will take place via Zoom at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 3. Those interested in attending the virtual event must register in advance.
From Jamaica, and born to a Jamaican father and Venezuelan mother, McCallum is the author of six books published in the United States and United Kingdom. Her most recent book, “No Ruined Stone” (2021), imagines what might have happened if poet Robert Burns had sailed from Scotland in 1786, as planned, to take a job on a slave plantation in Jamaica. According to poet Adrian Matejka, “the book mythologizes the poet Robert Burns and his imagined Jamaican descendants through a chorus of intergenerational voices. This collection is timely and timeless as it reframes the complicated genealogies created by colonialism. Erasure is one of the colonizer’s most insidious tools and McCallum’s gorgeous monologues serve to reclaim the voices ignored, unsaid, and unclaimed because of colonialism.”
McCallum’s poems and essays have appeared in journals, anthologies and textbooks throughout the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and Israel. “La historia es un cuarto/History is a Room,” an anthology of poems selected from across her six books and translated into Spanish by Adalber Salas Hernández, was published in 2021 by Mantis Editores in Mexico. In addition to Spanish, her poems have been translated into Italian, French, Romanian, Turkish and Dutch and have been set to music by composers Marta Gentilucci and Gity Razaz.
McCallum was recently awarded the prestigious silver Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica. The award, akin to the United States’ Presidential Medal of Freedom, honors Jamaican individuals for demonstrated excellence in their respective fields of literature, arts and science. Established in 1889, it is the oldest award of its kind to be bestowed in the Western Hemisphere.
Additional honors bestowed upon McCallum include the OCM Bocas Poetry Prize (for her previous book, “Madwoman”); a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress; an NEA Fellowship in Poetry; the Oran Robert Perry Burke Award for Nonfiction; and the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize (for her first book, “The Water Between Us”).
In addition to her Penn State faculty appointment, McCallum currently serves on the Pacific Low-Residency MFA faculty and previously taught creative writing and literature at various universities. During her yearlong tenure as Penn State Laureate, McCallum has been offering readings and speaking at events throughout Pennsylvania, the United States, and internationally. She has also been showcasing the works of other Pennsylvania poets on “Poetry Moment,” a weekly segment that airs on NPR affiliate station WPSU.
The Mary E. Rolling Reading Series is a program offered by Penn State’s Creative Writing Program in English. The series receives support from the College of the Liberal Arts; the Department of English; the Joseph L. Grucci Poetry Endowment; the Mary E. Rolling Lectureship in Creative Writing; and University Libraries. A full list of readings in the 2021-22 series, as well as links to livestreams and virtual events, can be found at the website.